Friday, October 11, 2013

A number of iPhone 5s owners have reported receiving the dreaded blue screen of death on their iOS device followed by a forced reboot.

The Verge notes that the BSOD occurs only with the iPhone 5s and is usually caused by Apple's own iWork apps. As you can see in the video below, the error can be triggered by multitasking between those apps.

Just shortly after BlackBerry revealed it would lay off up to 40% of its workforce, Apple hosted a recruitment drive 20 kms away from the company's headquarters, reports the Financial Post.

Apple invited BlackBerry employees to a recruitment event held at the Cambridge Hotel and Conference Center on September 26th.

“Most positions will be based in Cupertino, CA.,” according to a LinkedIn invite sent to certain BlackBerry employees. “Relocation and immigration assistance will be provided for candidates that are hired, as needed.”

Pfeiffer Consulting has compared the leading mobile operating systems and determined that iOS 7 wins for Overall User Experience.

Here's what they had to say about each operating system...

iOS 7: 73.25Apple has achieved its goal to move iOS into the modern smartphone era. Despite some controversial design aspects, iOS 7 is pleasant and more fluid to use than other mobile operating systems—and it does not look like any competing system on the market. It will be interesting what the longterm impact of iOS7 will be—in any case, market penetration is likely to be significantly faster than that of any other new mobile operating system.

iOS 6: 70iOS 6 is still the simplest mobile operating system, especially for very inexperienced users, but that simplicity comes at the price of efficiency and integration features that the operating system lacks. In the context of smartphone use, the absence of these features is a handicap, since, unlike tablets, smartphones rely much more on tight integration of repeatedly used key apps and services.

Android (Samsung): 57.25Android has come a long way in terms of user experience, and could easily become an iOS killer not only in terms of market-share, but in terms of user experience—provided that Google and Samsung truly understood where the user experience differences with Apple’s platform lie.

A federal judge in Delaware has dismissed a class-action lawsuit brought against Google for bypassing Safari privacy settings, reports the WSJ.

U.S. District Judge Sue Robinson wrote that the companies had circumvented the browsers’ settings, allowing users’ personal information to be sold to ad companies. But the judge said that the plaintiffs couldn’t show that they suffered because the companies collected and sold their information.

Back in 2012, the FTC investigated claims that Google circumvented Safari's ad-block settings in order to store cookies and deliver targeted ads to users.